Pearls of great price

Joni Eareckson Tada has a new devotional out and it just landed on my doorstep this week! It's called Pearls of Great Price and is published by Zondervan (ISBN 0-310-26298-4). I decided that even though it wasn't the new year — which is when I usually tackle a new devotional — and since I was struggling in that department, I would just dig right in.

Joni's devotionals have been such a boon to my spiritual life over the years and I always find that in a simple but deep and solid way she is able to direct my focus to great truths about God and give me something to focus on for the day. (Just 3 days in and it's already been a blessing to my soul!) ..... so, if anyone is looking for a good book for a gift for someone, try this one out.

I must say... since it's not likely I'll ever meet Joni on earth, I sure am looking forward to meeting her in heaven one day! I'm sure she'll have many pearls in her crown, having sown such heavenly treasures...

... truth

"Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth...
These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other...
Therefore love truth and peace" (Zechariah 8:3,16,19)

In our relativistic, post-modern world, these are radical statements.

Check out David Robinson's blog (livebythetruth.blogspot.com)
for a very good mediation on 2 Thess. 2:10 and what it
means to actually love the truth.

He restores my soul

Years ago I heard a very powerful sermon on the phrase from Psalm 23, “he restores my soul.” I have often thought of that sermon and my own experience as a Christian has born it out. Our souls are often in need of tending and restoration, whether it be because of weariness, struggles with sin, faintness of faith, etc. … so many things that cause us to lose heart... But the preacher that day spoke of two ways that God works to restore my soul when it is in need of it:

(1) By truth (his Word)
(2) Through his people

It seems like a pretty simple exposition but as I have travelled this road of life I have known, again and again, how powerfully God's truth can transform my life and restore my soul … and how, so often, he uses his people to effect that in my life.

My experience this week of soul weariness and the way that God has used a few people to encourage me and bring God’s truth to bear on that, has just reminded me again of this passage. I am so thankful that God showed this truth to David (the psalmist) and that he continues to prove his promise to “restore my soul.”

John Newton on the death of a believer

Just a little gem from John Newton's Olney Hymns on the death of a believer, as he tries to grasp what that moment must mean. Incredible!

Olney Hymns, Hymn LXXII
On the death of a believer

In vain my fancy strives to paint
The moment after death;
The glories that surround the saints,
When yielding up their breath.

One gentle sigh their fetters breaks,
We scarce can say, “They’re gone!”
Before the willing spirit takes
Her mansion near the throne.

Faith strives, but all its efforts fail,
To trace her in her flight:
No eye can pierce within the vail
Which hides that world of light.

Thus much (and this is all) we know,
They are completely blest:
Have done with sin, and care, and woe,
And with their Saviour rest.

On harps of gold they praise his name,
His face they always view:
Then let us follow’rs be of them,
That we many praise him too.

Their faith and patience, love and zeal,
Should make their mem’ry dear;
And, Lord, do thou the pray’rs fulfil,
They offer’d for us here!

While they have gain’d, we losers are,
We miss them day by day;
But thou canst ev’ry breach repair,
And wipe our tears away.

We pray, as in Elisha’s case,
When great Elijah went,
May double portions of thy grace,
To us who stay, be sent.

—John Newton

Freedom's price

Today has been a day of remembering in Canada — remembering those who gave their lives in war to secure our freedoms. Many men and women, from all walks of life, all social standings, all areas of Canada, served in the Great Wars, in Korea, in Africa and parts of Europe on UN missions, and now, in Afghanistan. It is a very sobering thing to reflect on the price that these people paid, and their families too, so that we in Canada, and those in other lands, can enjoy peace. Peace can be such a fragile thing in some countries and yet in Canada we have known decades and decades of peace. It is an incredible blessing from God!

I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about this over the years, but this year I have been struck by what a peculiar privelege I have enjoyed because of those whose names I don't even know. With well over 1 million Canadians serving in WW2 and over 42,000 killed, I realize that my freedoms came at a heavy price. Few families back then would have been unaffected by the war and many lived fatherless, husbandless and sonless, after it was over. It has been a timely reminder to me to remember and to thank God for such people.

One day we'll get it

We heard Romans 8 expounded this evening, how God works all things in our lives for good, and I am reminded of this portion of a letter that I read recently and noted to myself in the margin “perspective of heaven on our earthly troubles." God’s ways are so strange sometimes. We cannot understand what he does in our lives and the lives of others—but heaven will bring such a different perspective on these things...

Writes Samuel Rutherford to the Lady Kenmure on June 26, 1630:

“…We may indeed think, cannot God bring us to Heaven with ease and prosperity? Who doubteth that he can? But his infinite wisdom thinketh, and decreeth the contrary; and we cannot see a reason for it, yet he hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul, yet we have a soul; we see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain, yet they have a beginning.

Madam, when ye are come to the other side the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters, and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God’s wisdom, ye shall, then, be forced to say, ‘If God had done otherwise with me then he hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory.’

It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on: for I protest, in the presence of that all-discerning Eye, who knoweth what I write, and what I think, that I would not want the sweet experience of the consolations of God, for all the bitterness of affliction: nay, whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what way soever thou comest, if we can get a sight of thee. And sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bed-side, and draw by the curtains, and say, ‘Courage! I am thy salvation!’ than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited by God.”